QOTD – Do younger people have an easier time with Polyamory?

Dan: What we’re starting off with this question of the day, dawn, you are a …I would have to say over 20 year old person..

dawn: I was going to say… where you going with this? Oh, definitely over 20. Thank God. And over 30. Thank God. over 40? hhhhmmmmmmm.

Dan: But you know how far you want to go with that? We know some polyamory people of all age ranges. Everything from, I think 74 is the oldest person we know who is polyamorous. I think so, yeah. All the way down to….apparently now I understand there’s a 14 year old who is connected in our poly metamor children pool who says they are contemplating if they are polyamory.

Dan: So do you think there’s any difference between being polyamorous at and let’s not say 14 because you’re, but let’s say in the, in the 20 to 30 year old range and coming to polyamory as you are maybe post 40 or older.?

dawn: I think there is a difference. I think the younger people kind of get it a little more, they’re exposed to it a little more so, whereas older people, most of us were raised,… “monogamy, white picket fence, find the one. If you get married and you’re unhappy, then you cheat” or you know, things like that. Not, “go out and find other ethical relationships and to keep this ethical as well”, you know, and things like that. We’re not taught that. So, you know, when you find out when somebody cheats, it’s like, okay, well that’s sad, but you know, the results of that is sad, but it’s kind of like expected.

Dan: I don’t know that I’d go so far as to say it’s expected. It’s certainly prevalent in culture. It’s certainly prevalent. It’s certainly not a horri…… It’s not a mindblowing surprise when you find out somebody is cheating or being cheated on.

dawn: Maybe that’s just the environment I was raised in, right?. It’s not unheard of for that to happen quite a bit.

Dan: The interesting thing, I totally agree with you…. One of the challenges or one of the challenges you and I had as we began to explore polyamory is there wasn’t a lot of language around it. There wasn’t (dawn – very true).. was the… yahoo groups was just becoming a thing. There was the IRC, which is the old school chat, and even a little bit further back than that, right?.. You would have tried to hook up with people via magazines and that kind of thing.

dawn: But it was mostly swinger magazines. There weren’t like poly magazines.

Dan: Right. The language of polyamory was obscure. It was unknown. It was certainly not known to you and I until we started getting involved and we started looking around. Now, it doesn’t mean that the concept wasn’t there. And as I said, we have a couple of friends that are in their seventies that say they’ve always been polyamorous, right?

dawn: Well, and some of them from the hippie generation, so free love, free love baby,

Dan: which is interesting because the term polyamory was coined …early seventies?

dawn: I’m thinking it was the seventies. I’d really have to look it up, but it was Morningglory Zell, and she passed recently in the last couple of years and she coined the term and I need to look up more about that, but I’m thinking it was the seventies. I know she ….I thought she coined the term ‘compersion’ not necessarily ‘polyamory’ ….(dawn) she coined the term polyamory. It was a group in California that coined the term compersion. EDIT: She coined the term in 1990.

Dan: So modern younger people, they have polyamory in music. They have polyamory television shows, although some of them are explored, like “married dating and single” is not necessarily a great representation of polyamory, but it is a representation of polyamory. And the language, the word polyamory, if you walk into a highschool and say polyamory, most people get it. They know the word just like they have all the other language that is common now along that…..

dawn: So much so that our youngest came to us and said, “you know what, I’m trying to find somebody to date. I’m actually looking online” and in other places that he does in person. And he was like, “why is everybody poly? I’m just looking for a monogamous partner that I can create a life with and I can’t find it.” so and well, even our oldest …. his partner used to be poly.

Dan:The other challenge that older people that are getting involved in polyamory, especially if they’re already in an existing relationship, is you have a lot of built in ideologies and built in philosophies and built in, you know, “this is the way it’s supposed to be”. So just regardless of the fact that you may, you know what? …I’m even going to take away the whole, “if you’re an existing relationship already,” right? I spent 35 years being programmed that monogamy is the correct way to do it. Right? Right, right. And it wasn’t until that I turned 35 that I started to explore polyamory. So not only did I have to learn this new language, but I also had to get past all of this conditioning that I went through where if, if you’re in your twenties nowadays, you’re not carrying that burden of….. you are carrying that burden of conditioning and I’m not going to say you’re not, but even if you had the same conditioning that I did, you have less time that you are being conditioned. (dawn…..Oh, that’s true.) And the reality is you’re not having likely to have that same conditioning because again, in the music, in the media, polyamory is something. Well, how there’s those conventions in polyamory. Our poly Columbus group gets 50 people per thing, Our Beyond the Love event is going to have 250, maybe even 300 people on it this year. So I think the biggest challenge is just getting over this….for me at least… it was getting over the preconceived notion of what the real inappropriate relationship styles are.

dawn: So true, true. I totally agree with that because like I said, I was supposed to have the white picket fence, I was supposed to have so many children and the dog and always remain faithful. I mean, how many love songs….. though there are poly love songs …and you know that song…, “I’m in love with Jill and Jane”.

Dan: Yes. I like both Jay and Jane.

dawn: So you know, so there are songs like that. There’s also the songs that I will always remain faithful to my woman, too.

Dan: So, if you’re out there and you say, look, we’re going to have a polyamory triad wedding of some sorts…..Try and find music to go with that. Good luck, right? Because it’s all “always and forever”…and …. “You’ll be my only one”…. That kind of stuff. (dawn…”I will stalk you for ever”.) If you think that older and/or younger people have an easier time with the polyamory, tell us what you think you can head over to our facebook page, erotic wakening podcast, all one word and share your thoughts,